Hardly a subdivision goes by that doesn’t construct at least one model home, maybe even a dozen. Being able to touch the bricks and mortar-not to mention the elegant draperies and the squooshy carpeting-can bolster the confidence of buyers who are struggling to envision a house beyond the precise lines and artsy lettering of architectural drawings.
“Here,” the builder is saying to potential consumers. “This is what I’m going to do.”
A St. Charles development company is in the process of adapting the same medium to get its message across. It is just about to begin construction on a model home, but the message the company is trying to convey is to custom builders instead of buyers.
“Here,” intones the message to the builders. “This is what I want you to do.”
B & B Enterprises is developing Fox Mill, a community in St. Charles that is planned for 603 single-family homes and 76 townhouses. In the initial phase, B & B has sold lots to about 20 independent builders, who in turn will build custom homes in the range of $290,000 to $350,000.
The company is taking the unusual step of building a model for the builders because it has a vision of how the homes in the development should look-and further, how they should relate to one another. Company president Ken Blood wants Fox Mill to manifest a community-planning and design philosophy that is related to a movement known as neotraditionalism.
“Neotrads,” as they are known among people who pay attention to such things, hold strong views that the suburban development and design practices of recent decades have led to a lot of waste and an appalling degree of alienation of one neighbor from another. Some remedies are relatively simple, in the neotraditionalist view: Build houses and neighborhoods so residents can walk to their destinations instead of driving; restore front porches big enough to host neighbor-to-neighbor gabfests; and above all, create an environment where people do more than eat and sleep-make it simple to walk to places where they also can shop and play.
B & B has modified the neotrad concept because of some economic and cultural realities-after all, this is Kane County, not exactly a hotbed of radical design. Thus it prefers to call the concept “prairie traditional,” though at its root it retains neotraditionalism’s preference for curving streets instead of cul de sacs.
When completed, Fox Mill will consist of one-third open space. Included will be biking and hiking trails; an existing farm building will become a recreation and meeting center with swimming pool. Another farm building will serve as a farmer’s market. A neighborhood commerical area is planned, with grocery, dry cleaner, pharmacy, etc. One site is being donated to an area church.
In the name of design unity, B & B has developed guidelines for the builders. Before construction begins, the builders must submit plans to the developer’s design review committee, spelling out locations for such things as driveways, sidewalks, doors, balconies, etc. In addition, the builders must submit illustrations of doors, windows, materials, colors and myriad other details.
Highly encouraged are traditional architectural styles-whether Victorian or Cape Cod or good old American farmhouse-with detailing that’s appropriate to their origins. For example, a Victorian-styled exterior with Colonial columns is not desirable. Nor is any house whose three-car garage juts out toward the sidewalk like some giant, gaping maw.
Blood insists that his company doesn’t hold the builders and homeowners in a hammerlock. “We’re trying to coax rather than drive them to amend their designs,” said Emilio M. Miniscalco, whose St. Charles architectural firm worked with B & B to draw up the guidelines. He is on Fox Mill’s three-member review board.
Up to this point, B & B’s design review process comparable to that of numerous other builders in high-end custom developments, where the stated aim usually is to maintain continuity in a community’s appearance.
But where B & B parts company with those other developers is in putting up the model, now under construction at the subdivision on La Fox Road, south of Illinois Highway 64. B & B decided to consolidate medium and message, which in this case will be four-bedroom, traditionally styled two-story home that is scheduled to be completed in January and from which the company will conduct business until the house is sold, at a time to be determined.
The house is, in a sense, a visual aid. “We’re working with 20-plus builders,” Blood explains. “They’re all good builders.
“But there is nothing more independent than a custom home-builder. It is tough to convince them to change what they’ve done for 20 years.”
B & B hopes to illustrate the overall effect when a design incorporates side-loading (or at least, visually set back) garages, roomy front porches and roof pitches that aren’t as steep as a ski slope. The company wants to show how certain “architecturally appropriate” details-such as attached window boxes, proportioned fences and windows that look “right”-keep a visual warmth and continuity in the neighborhood.
Blood and Miniscalco say they realize some might find their suggestions a bit-shall we say-“lockstep,” that perhaps people who can afford to spend $350,000 or so for a custom home might well believe they ought to be able to put in any feature they want, regardless whether a committee finds it “appropriate.”
But Miniscalco is quick to assure that rigidity is not at all what’s desired. “It’s basically a process of compromise,” he explains. “Most people in this area are looking for traditional homes, anyway. Once they see that they’re not that far off (from the design amendments that B & B would suggest), they see how it’s going to work.”
And if a builder showed up with a design for a $400,000 “California contemporary”?
“It could work, as long as it’s a contemporary done well,” Miniscalco said, smiling. “It could even be fun to see how it could fit in.”
